Carnivalesque XIII: Fewer teeth, more bite!
Welcome to Carnivalesque XIII. It’s a rapid return to this site (I hosted Carnivalesque IX) as I volunteered to be a host of last resort. If you’d like to know more about hosting Carnivalesque then please visit the homepage. Carnivalesque is a periodic compliation of links to highlight recent blog entries you may have missed. I’ve also cheated a couple of times and added entries which aren’t strictly blog posts, but are part of dated articles on the web. The carnival alternates between being an Ancient / Medieval carnival and an Early Modern history carnival and this month we’re in the ancient and medieval part of the cycle. With it being a short-notice event I thought I’d be lacking entries, so I decided to have a theme this issue which gave me an excuse to include plenty of Early Modern entries too. This time the theme is Women’s History because March is Women’s History Month. I suppose I could justify why it might be a good idea to pay more attention to 50% of humanity, but Bertrand Russell has beaten me to it.
Contents
We open with a bit of a cheat. Blogger Natalie Bennett has a peer-reviewed paper Resurrecting Our Foremothers: My Hopes as a Biographer, Journalist, and Blogger in the online journal Thirdspace, which talks about how women disappear from history.
Fortunately, women are also able to reappear into the historical record. The Diary of Lady Shelburne is appearing on the web at Secondat. At the time of writing the 6th entry with a wealth of annotations was the latest addition.
As it happens I needn’t have worried about a lack of entries. With the aid of some contributors I’ve been scouring the medieval and ancient history weblogs for entries posted since the start of the year. However, I found nothing quite odd as this first entry. I can’t think of an apt desciption. It’s best just to quote.
“I was recently at an academic talk where a brief fight broke out between professors over the number of Holy Prepuces (The Greatest Genital Relic Ever Sold) littering medieval Europe–that is, how many churches claimed to have the bit of foreskin that Jesus had cut off during his circumcision.”
Ciceronianus at Nvgae Ciceronianae wished everyone a Happy Lupercalia on February the 14th .
How much money you had to woo women with is the subject of the post Spreadsheet at Laputan Logic which tackles Roman, Mesopotamian and Indian mathematics.
What happens when you put Colin Farrell in a historical drama? Will’s Nomadic Thoughts examine the film The New World. Alexander is subject to a review at the aptly named Fascinating History.
Michael Gilleland at Laudator Temporis Acti has added a new word to my vocabulary: Mulligrubs. It’s fantastic and promises to be a terribly useful word.
The ruins of Tunisia are utterly wonderful. This is not just my opinion. Varro of Homo Edax has also visited Tunisia and seen the sites. Perigrinationes Africanae is a write up of his trip.
Montreal was at the centre of the Classical world briefly this winter. Troels Myrup has a report on the AIA/APA meeting there. Parts Zero, One, Two and Three.
If the trip to the colonies is too much for you there’s Postcolonial Chaucer at In the Middle.
The Official and Unofficial Weblog of the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project also has a brief conference report. You can download an academic poster presented at the joint Israeli-German scientific symposium on “Water is Life” from the site.
It’s not just people that travel. Harbors far from the Sea at Snail’s Tales also show how rivers and coastlines move and meander.
A megalithic tomb in Tunisia.
Old School comments on the power of ancient sites in modern politics in the post There’s no place like ancient ruins: Archaeological photo ops in Bolivia and Iran.
The Palm Leaf has recently migrated to WordPress, but continues to be worth reading. I’ve picked Biased against Millets, because it shows how odd archaeological finds can be, but still tell us about the past.
Adrian Murdoch makes a brief but welcome note on Ethical Archaeology at Bread and Circuses.
Laura Murphy at Classical Archaeologist has an overview of Recent LiDAR applications in archaeology. Light Detection and Ranging, since you ask and no, I didn’t know either. The post explains why this is so exciting.
Martin Rundkvist has recently started blogging at Salto Sobrius. There’s plenty I could have chosen, but on his advice I’ll link to Celtic God Mask which comes with a photo of the object to be published in a forthcoming issue of Fornvännen.
Athens, The Odeon of Herodes Atticus
There are have been a few theatre posts this season. I’ll start with a review of The Odyssey at the Lyric, Hammersmith by Natalie Bennett at My London Your London.
Nathan Bauman has an entry on the classical group blog, Blogographos. Iphegenia among the Taurians isn’t an astrological romance. Instead it’s a tale of human sacrifice at the sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron by the playwright Euripedes. Is the ultimate sacrifice necessary to appease the goddess?
…but do we want to know about violent women. Glaukôpis comments on an odd choice of play for prison inmates. On Latin, Comics and Medea at Glaukôpidos.
The final word on women in plays goes to Early Modern Whale with O Rare Will Davenant! which shows what happens when a theatre manager doesn’t understand the play or the players.
I’m not sure where history ends and literature begins, so I’m including Beowulf Hobbyists of the World, Unite! at Unlocked Wordhoard.
First prize for academic segues must go to Pope Door Productions for the post on being observed teaching class: From Medieval German Monastaries to Rosa Parks.
The Memory of the “Roman Republic” in the Late Empire: The Importance of the Lingering Memory of the “Roman Republic” During the Late Empire: A Letter from Ausonius to the Emperor Gratian is possibly the longest post title I’ve seen. Jerry Monaco at Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, & Culture: has an eye-opening view on the persistence of the memory of the Roman republic even into the late fourth century.
Michael Hendry writes on Aristotle’s observations on Paeonian Oxen. He also notes that Pseudo-Aristotle writes something awfully similar.
A Medieval Moment is a new blog to me. It welcomed the new year with a series of posts on the Domesday Book. You’ll probably want to start with part one of four.
There’s a review of Horse – How How the Horse Has Shaped Civilizations by J. Edward Chamberlain at Blogcritics by W.E.Wallo.
Umma, a Sumerian capital city, illicitly excavated. The smooth bits are the unexcavated patches. Photo from the WMF.
Scholars may soon get their hands on two new texts, but there are ethical problems associated with both. Varman reports The Oldest Buddhist Manuscripts have been smuggled out of Bamiyan in Afghanistan and are now in the hands of a collector. They’ve already been labelled “the Buddhist Dead Sea Scrolls”.
Another candidate for the new Dead Sea Scrolls is The Gnostic Gospel of Judas, posted at Muhlberger’s Early History. This is a text illegally exported from Egypt which will appear in National Geographic soon. It’s a serious issue as Steve Muhlberger says:”...will paying the holders legitimize their activities and make sales of illegally obtained manuscripts more likely and more lucrative in the future?“Add your opinion at his blog.
SAFE have added a new story to their site. Italy and the Met: Three decades of controversy finally resolved? which examines what happens when museums acquire material of questionable provenance.
Melchior del Darién writes another blog which is new to me Mortlake on the Schuylkill, as is the subject of his post Blog Against Sexism: Sor Juana, 1651?-1695.
Barista notes another lady of letters, Christine de Pizan, in Europe’s first professional writer.
Another is Damaris Masham, who wrote Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life. Brandon at Siris describes it as “one of the most important (and neglected) works of philosophy of education written by an empiricist”.
If I’m going to talk about Women’s History then it might be helpful if I had an idea what feminism is. I’m not sure I do. Here’s my post Gender, Archaeology and Gender Archaeology.
The comments are helpful, as is a post on the same subject by Tony Keen at Memorabilia Antonina who talks about A Feminist Archaeology.
…but to make it more confusing for me, while gender doesn’t mean feminism, Dr. Virago at Quod She notes a time When Gender doesn’t mean Gender either.
Marc at Spinning Clio tells us I like Medieval Women (Especially Queens).
I’m not sure what he’d make of Ranavalona, the subject of the post All the usual slanders are laid against a female queen at Philibiblion.
And so this edition of Carnivalesque draws to a close. There is the question if having a whole month of Women’s History means the pendulum is swinging too far in the opposite direction. You’re welcome to comment below, but I suggest you read Swá we eác settað be eallum hádum, ge ceorle ge eorle by Old English blogger Heo Cwaeth first.
The next Carnivalesque is an Early Modern edition at Earmarks in Early Modern Culture. There’s also the Carnival of Bad History online at Ahistoricality. There’s also the History Carnival at the swish looking History : Other on February 15. My thanks go to every who nominated themselves or other people for this issue making the job of compiling it a little easier. For me, the most enjoyable thing about putting Carnivalesque together is finding some really interesting stuff that I wouldn’t have otherwise read, so extra eyes are always appreciated.
I realise that having a Women History edition could be seen as a political statement to I’ll give the last word to the noted philosopher Marx who had this to say:
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